Cancer Survivor

Eight years after her diagnosis, Susan Kidd's athletic dreams are back on track. —Hilary MacGregor

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Susan Kidd stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, about to embark on a quest so daunting it takes a moment to digest: to hike the canyon from the south rim to the north rim and back in two days. That’s more than 20 miles and close to 12,000 feet of steep, narrow ascents and descents one way—only to turn around and do it all again.

The summer sun had not yet risen, and a bone-cold wind whipped across the vast crack in the earth. Although temperatures in the canyon would climb to nearly 100 degrees later that day, it was 30 degrees as Kidd set out. “I first stood at the canyon edge when I was 4 years old and my folks took me to Arizona, and I’d thought about hiking it ever since,” says Kidd, a 38-year-old Navy wife and mom of three from Chesapeake, Virginia. “But something always came up—college, marriage, our first child. And then I found myself face-to-face with cancer.”

Always “the chubby kid” growing up, Kidd had struggled with weight for most of her life. In late 2002, as she approached 30, she decided to take action: She started training for her first marathon, a race in Alaska that would coincide with her birthday on June 21. But that March, she found a strange lump in her throat, and after several rounds of testing (and doctor’s orders to bow out of the race), Kidd was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. “I felt like I was in a really bad after-school special,” she says.

She had surgery to remove her thyroid gland and one of her lymph nodes. Afterward, rather than receiving chemo or radiation, Kidd ingested radioactive iodine to kill any remaining cancer cells—first, in 2003, a dose so massive that she had to be isolated from her family and friends so the radiation in her system wouldn’t harm them, and then smaller amounts to test for recurrences of the cancer each year for seven years, except when she was pregnant. Through it all, exercising at the YMCA helped Kidd bounce back from her treatments and stay sane through weight fluctuations exacerbated by going on and off thyroid meds. “I want to be tired because it’s my choice, not because of cancer,” she says.

In September 2010, Kidd started working her way up to running long-distance again, first alternating walking with jogging, then tackling miles at a time. She finished her first half marathon in March 2011. “When you run, you look over your shoulder and see the helpless, weak or cancer-ridden body, those things in your past, and you know if you keep running they will never catch up,” says Kidd, who has now lost 70 pounds from her highest weight. “I’m trying to do all those things I let self-consciousness, fear or life in general stop me from doing. The canyon is one of them.”

So this June, Kidd joined a group of 20 trekkers for the fifth Grand Canyon hike organized by Project Athena, a charity in San Diego that helps women who have gone through health struggles or traumas to heal by taking on an athletic challenge they must train long and hard for. “For some women who are battling a medical condition, being alive is not enough,” says Project Athena founder Robyn Benincasa, an adventure racer and firefighter who has had three hip replacements. “They want their groove back.”

During that first day in the canyon, the hikers would push themselves to their limits. A nurse, a paramedic, two EMTs and a combat medic accompanied them. In the climbing temperatures, the hikers swigged electrolyte-replacement drinks hourly to stave off dehydration. One woman suffered a fall so severe that Kidd heard the crack of her leg bone; she was later flown to safety.

“I’m getting a little freaked out,” a tearful Kidd told her husband, Mike, on the phone that night from her cabin at the north rim, 24 miles from where she’d started. Two hikers had opted out of Day 2. Kidd’s will was strong, but her body was screaming: Her feet throbbed, and her muscles felt like jelly. “I don’t think I can go one more step,” she told Mike. “I am really worried about tomorrow.”

Later, Mike said he never doubted her. “She has talked her way through a heck of a lot of pain. If I thought she would heed my counsel, I probably would have told her to drop out. But I knew there was nothing I was going to do that was going to shift her resolve one way or another.”

Still, the idea of getting up at 4 A.M. the next day and enduring more excruciating hours of trekking was overwhelming. The strongest hikers were ready to help the most exhausted of the group carry their 15-pound packs and hook them onto towlines. But Kidd said, “I’ve been sick off and on all the time. It is so hard to ask for more help. I struggle with being a burden.”

As the group set out on the second day, Benincasa gathered them to deliver a dose of moral support. “You don’t get to our age without a few scars, which have made you the person you are,” she said. “Today is going to be another fight, against fatigue, lactic acid, blisters, electrolyte depletion and even the motivation to make it to the other side. But the beauty of this battle is that it is one we have chosen and not one that has chosen us.”

Kidd set off up the path. “When I get tired, it triggers memories of being sick,” she said. “I have to take deep breaths and not let my thoughts run away from me.”

But she was determined. The night before, Benincasa had called her an endurance athlete. Kidd clung to the label like a prize. “All I ever wanted was to be called an athlete,” she said. “I was always the last one picked for kickball.”

“The goal of this challenge is for people to discover how amazing they are,” Benincasa said. Through applications and interviews, the group screens participants for their athletic background and attitude and prepares a training schedule for those they select. “We can facilitate the hike, but they do it,” she said. “You cannot just get up off the couch and do this.”

For miles, the trail was steep and barren, with no shade from even a rock or a cactus paddle. One hiker, an ultramarathoner, supported a comrade from behind with a trekking pole and fed ginger tablets to those who grew nauseated from heat.

By the time the hikers were five hours from the end, four of the original group had dropped out. “I just can’t take the nausea,” Kidd said, downing water to combat the heat. As the group crossed the Colorado River, Benincasa turned and hooked Kidd onto the towline. She did not protest.

Finally, the group hit the canyon’s legendary rock formations. They crossed a bridge on top of the world and the earth fell away for thousands of feet on both sides. A hawk glided through the air below. Back on the trail, no one even stepped out of sight to pee anymore. They were without shame, bonded in the awesome surroundings—and exhaustion.

After the final 45 minutes of steep switchbacks, Benincasa unhooked Kidd, who ran to the trail’s end. She grinned in the golden light as the others surrounded her and whooped for joy.

Back in civilization the next day, Kidd sat on a restaurant balcony overlooking the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, stiff, sore and proud. “I feel as if I am becoming the real me,” she said. “I always wanted to be an athlete, but illness got in the way.”

She paused.

“I am so tired of letting dreams go, out of fear,” she said. “I am afraid I am still not fit enough, still not strong enough, and that insecurity will never go away. But I’m less angry. When there are things you want to do and cancer holds you back, you feel angry. You feel cheated. Now I’ve had this experience, and it replenishes this tank inside me. It is not always easy to do that.”

That night, Kidd danced under the stars during the group’s farewell dinner. She’d already vowed to return to the canyon next June as a mentor. “I am not the same person I was when I entered the canyon that first day,” she says now. “I learned to trust in other people and myself. I know I could conquer anything I set my mind to. I would love to have someone else feel as invincible as I do.”